


Every single night (pray the sun will rise)

by Rainne



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Female Alpha, Humor, Kidnapping, Multi, Mutual Pining, Sass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 20:50:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20070388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainne/pseuds/Rainne
Summary: Steve’s heat lasted for about three days – short, as heats generally went, but Bucky said that was normal for Steve – and when it was over, Darcy went back to work with the slightly smug air of an alpha with a job well done. That smug air lasted about twenty minutes.





	Every single night (pray the sun will rise)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suzukiblu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/gifts).

Steve’s heat lasted for about three days – short, as heats generally went, but Bucky said that was normal for Steve – and when it was over, Darcy went back to work with the slightly smug air of an alpha with a job well done. That smug air lasted about twenty minutes.

Jane Foster was not much of a people person but after years of working together, she knew Darcy well enough to know when Darcy was putting up a front, and she leaned against the wall to study her intern for a moment before saying “So when are you three going to make it official?”

“Official?” Darcy scoffed. “Why would we make it official? _What _would we make official? There isn’t anything to _make _official.”

“Pull the other one,” Jane said.

“No, really,” Darcy said. “There’s nothing – I mean, we weren’t _seeing _each other or anything before this happened. I was just the only available unattached alpha. I mean,” she added, diffident, “I guess they could have gone to a service or something, but can you _imagine _the paperwork? NDAs for _days_.”

“So you’re totally okay with that?” Jane asked. “Totally okay with just being that alpha that helped out Steve and Bucky with Steve’s heat that one time?”

Darcy paused, then shrugged, swallowing hard. “I mean, I kind of have to be, don’t I?” she asked, looking Jane in the eye for the first time since the conversation started. “I mean, they’re bonded, and I’m pretty sure they’re not looking for a third.”

“They need a third, though,” Jane pointed out. “Bucky’s a beta; he can’t take care of Steve’s heats.”

“That’s a pretty uber-traditional way of looking at it. They worked it out this time, didn’t they?” Darcy replied. “There’s ways around not having a third. Lots of ways.” She shrugged. “And nobody frowns on non-Alpha groupings any more. Well, not many people, anyway.”

Jane shook her head. “It’s not like you to give up on something without a fight.”

“I’m trying to tell you, Jane, there’s nothing to give up _on_. I gave them a hand. That’s it.”

Jane sighed, coming over and patting Darcy’s shoulder. “Someday you’ll have the sense to see what’s right in front of your nose,” she said. “For now, though, I really need you on these readouts; something’s going on in the fourth quadrant and I can’t figure out what it is.”

~*~

They spent the next two days studying that fourth quadrant; something weird was going on there, and Jane was absolutely puzzled as to what it could be. “It’s not a new black hole,” she said on Thursday. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not. And I don’t _think _it’s the Bifrost acting up.” She sighed, sitting back in her chair and staring at the readouts on her computer. “All right, that’s it; I need an observatory.”

“Upstate?” Darcy asked, sitting back as well and reaching for her planner.

Jane shook her head. “No, I want the big one. The Keck.”

Darcy nodded. “I’ll get you booked.” She pushed her rolling chair over to her desk, flipping the planner open, and got on the phone to Hawai’i. Then she got off the phone and onto Google. “Hey Jane? We can’t go to the Keck.”

“Why not?” Jane demanded, coming to her from across the room. “I’ve got permissions there.”

“No, it’s not that,” Darcy replied. “It’s – you know how they were talking about building another giant telescope up there? The native Hawaiians are furious about it – Mauna Kea is sacred ground – so there’s huge protests going on right now. The observatories are shut down. And honestly, even if they weren’t, that’s not – we don’t want to cross the picket line, do we?”

“Hell no,” Jane replied. “I didn’t even know – hey, send me some links on that, will you?” she asked. “I wanna make sure I come down on the right side of this.”

“Sure,” Darcy replied. “In the meantime, what’s your second choice?”

Jane considered, tapping her chin for a moment. “Either the VLT or Amundsen.”

“Chile it is,” Darcy replied. “I don’t care _what _you say, I am _not _going to Antarctica.”

“Oh, boo,” Jane teased her. “No fun.”

Darcy stuck her tongue out at her boss and friend. “I’m _tons _of fun. Just not at minus three hundred degrees.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Jane chided her. “It never gets that cold there. It’s only like minus eighty, and that’s in the deep dead of winter.”

“Die in a fire,” Darcy replied. “It _is_ the deep dead of winter there right now.” She gave Jane the finger, then started flipping through the Rolodex, looking for the numbers to call to book time at the Very Large Telescope in Antofagasta.

Laughing, Jane wandered deeper into the lab again.

~*~

Team breakfast had become something of a Thing for the Avengers and their assorted associates; not that everyone necessarily magically appeared at the same time for waffles and bacon, but every day there was a small breakfast buffet in the kitchen and everyone gravitated towards it. There would be, at any given time between eight a.m. and noon, an average of three people eating breakfast and at least one (Clint) eating second breakfast. Thus it was that on the morning they were leaving for Chile, Darcy found herself at the breakfast table with Steve and Bucky.

_Act normal,_ she said to herself, and she smiled at them both as Bucky came back to the table with his second helping of eggs and sausages. “Everything going okay?” she asked them both. “I haven’t seen you since the big thing Wednesday, with the thing.”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve said. “The lizard thing. Minor stuff, that’s all. I broke two ribs – _again _– and Bucky got a bite and some bruises. We’re both totally fine now.”

_Act normal,_ she reminded herself. _Don’t have a freakout. You’re not their Alpha._

“You should’ve told me,” she said, her mouth working with no actual connection to the freakout happening in her brain. She managed to add, desperately, “I could’ve, I dunno, brought soup or something.”

Bucky smiled. “That’s nice of you,” he said, “but we did okay. I was totally fine in a day and Steve was back to fighting fit yesterday.” He pulled up the hem of his t-shirt to show off his side. “See? Not even a scar.”

Darcy shook her head. “How you do it I will never understand,” she admitted. “I’d see a giant lizard and either pass out or scream and run.”

“That’s what you _should _do,” Steve replied firmly. “You’re not combat rated, Darce; running is _exactly _what you should do in a situation like that.”

Darcy sighed. “Sometimes I feel like I should do more,” she admitted. “I’m an Alpha; I should have protective instincts coming out my ears. But I don’t; not really.” _Except when it comes to you two,_ her traitorous brain added.

Bucky tilted his head. “I mean… correct me if I’m wrong, because I obviously don’t know firsthand, but I thought Alpha protect instincts were basically reserved for their bonded.”

Darcy shrugged. “Mostly,” she admitted. “There’s some that… I dunno, cast a wider net? But yeah, mostly it’s just… it’s just the family unit. If there is one.”

“What if there’s not one?” Steve wanted to know.

Darcy shrugged again. “Couldn’t tell you,” she admitted. “Screaming and running, remember?” She laughed, and they laughed with her. “Honestly, though, I’ve never been in a position to find out.”

“Well, let’s hope you never are,” Bucky said firmly.

They finished their meals in relative silence, keeping the conversation light, and when Darcy was done, she stood up and carried her plate into the kitchen, rinsing it and sticking it in the dishwasher. “Well,” she said to the men, “guess I better get down to the lab before Jane has some kind of conniption over something not being packed.”

“When do you come back?” Steve asked.

“Whenever she’s done, honestly,” Darcy said. “I don’t _think _it’ll be longer than a couple weeks, but you never know; if she finds something interesting enough to write a paper on…”

Bucky grimaced. “Scientists,” he said, shaking his head. Bruce and Tony were the same way, and everyone knew it.

“Scientists,” Darcy and Steve agreed in unison.

Darcy sighed, grinning. “Well, guess I better go,” she said again, finding that she really, _really _didn’t want to go. She forced herself to head for the elevators. “See you when I get back.”

“Be safe,” Steve called after her.

She stepped into the elevator, turned, and saluted him. Then the doors slid closed.

Bucky looked over at Steve. “I _want,_” he complained.

“Me, too,” Steve admitted. “Look, how about this. When she gets back, we’ll ask her out. On a date. A real date. A nice dinner, maybe a movie. And we’ll tell her we want to date her. How about that?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said after a moment’s thought. “Not dinner and a movie, though. She’s classy but she’s wild, too. Let’s ask around for cool places to take her. Something _different._ Maybe…” His eyes went distant as he thought for a minute, and then he blinked, refocusing and grinning at Steve. “I bet she’d love a burlesque club.”

Steve blinked. “You are absolutely the brains of this outfit,” he said. “We’ll find one, a good one. And we’ll take her to dinner and then an amazing show. And _then _we’ll tell her.” He sat back in his chair, popping a piece of bacon into his mouth. “This is going to be perfect,” he said hopefully.

“Yes,” Bucky agreed, sounding both firm and a little desperate. “It has to be. Jesus, Steve, she’s the best Alpha I think we’ve ever had.”

“And we’ve had several Alphas,” Steve agreed. He cocked his head then, smirking at Bucky. “We should tell Tony about – ”

“We should absolutely _not_ tell Tony about,” Bucky shot back. “We like Tony the way he is, not with his brain broken. He’d never be able to look either of us in the eye again.” He shook his head. “Just let people think it was Peggy; nobody has to know any different.”

“Oh, _fine,_” Steve sighed dramatically. “You know, you never let me have any fun.”

“Fuck you, I let you fight a giant fucking lizard thing the other day,” Bucky retorted.

Steve laughed. “You do give me the best presents.”

~*~

Darcy and Jane had been gone two days when Clint climbed over the back of the rec room couch and planted his feet between Steve and Bucky’s hips. “Seriously, though,” he began, “when are you two going to – oh, _The X-Files_! This is the best show.”

“It really is,” Steve replied. “We love it.”

“That beta is an absolute sad sack, though, isn’t he?” Bucky added. “I dunno why she puts up with him.”

“You’d be _astonished _by how many people who watched this show when it was on the air wanted the two of them to get together.” He squinted at the television. “Hmm. What is this, the Haitian Voodoo one? Oh, early days.” He dug into his bowl of popcorn, tossing a handful into his mouth.

A few minutes later, Natasha followed Clint in from the kitchen, reaching around him to get a handful of popcorn out of the bowl. She squinted at the screen. “Is this the Haitian Voodoo episode?” she asked. When the guys all nodded, she scoffed a little bit. “This would never get made today. It’s way too heavy on the Voodoo stereotypes.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure real Voodoo practitioners can’t turn into cats,” Clint mused.

“Could you two shut up?” Steve asked mildly. “We’ve never seen this before.”

“I was twenty-two when I first saw this,” Natasha said, rounding the couch and tossing herself into an armchair. “Dana Scully was my lesbian awakening.”

There was a moment of silence in the room before Bucky said, “You’re… not a lesbian.”

“No, but if I’d met a badass Alpha like her, I could have been,” Natasha replied.

They watched the rest of the episode in silence, and when the credits rolled, Clint reached down to nudge the side of Bucky’s head with two fingertips. “So when are you two going to do something about this thing you’ve got going on with Darcy?”

“We don’t have a thing going on with Darcy,” Bucky replied, swatting at Clint’s hand.

“But you want to,” Natasha pointed out. “And don’t try to deny it. Clint and I both know better. We’ve been gossiping about the three of you for days.”

“I ship it,” Clint said. “I ship it _hard._”

“I don’t know what that means,” Steve replied mildly, “but I will find out, and if it’s disrespectful, I will punch you.”

“It just means he wants to see the three of you get together,” Natasha said. “Ship is short for relationship; it’s a fandom term and I will happily explain fandom to you at another time when we are not busy making you two very uncomfortable by prying into your romantic feelings for Darcy Lewis.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her clasped hands. “So, share with us all your sweet and tender feelings.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes.

Clint laughed. “Seriously, though, when are you going to do something?”

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance, and Bucky shrugged. Steve shook his head. “When she gets back,” he admitted. “We’ve already talked about it. We’re going to take her out somewhere fun and, you know, try to get her to date us.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Natasha said. “She’s totally into you.”

“We hope so,” Bucky replied.

“No, she totally is,” Clint told them. “She wouldn’t have heat-partnered you if she didn’t.”

“Maybe not,” Bucky hedged. “But then again, maybe so. And you don’t know, so don’t pretend you do. She’s the only one who knows for sure whether or not she would have.”

“She might have told me,” Clint said, looking sly.

Steve rolled his eyes. “She didn’t,” he said simply. “She’s not the type.”

“Besides, if Darcy was going to blab, she’d do it to Jane, not you.”

“Believe it or not,” Natasha said simply, “Darcy has other friends who aren’t Jane. Who aren’t involved with the Avengers, even.”

There was another moment of silence before Bucky said, “Is that even allowed?”

“This group is too inbred,” Clint observed. “We’d probably all benefit from friends outside the group.”

Steve shuddered theatrically. “Be friends with normals? No, thanks.”

Bucky laughed. “I don’t think you or I have ever been friends with anybody remotely normal,” he commented. “Everybody we’ve ever known has been weird or subversive.”

“The Beacon of Freedom, hanging out with subversives?” Clint asked. “Next you’ll tell me he’s a socialist.”

“Socialist, hell,” Bucky replied. “Steve’s a full-on Communist. He and his Ma both.”

Clint burst out laughing. “Joe McCarthy just rolled over in his grave.”

“There’s too much enjoyment happening in this rec room,” Tony said, sticking his head in from the hallway. “I’m exercising my right as owner of this building to demand that it stop unless I’m included.”

“Well, come watch _The X-Files, _then,” Steve replied. “We just finished the Haitian Voodoo one.”

“Oh, I love that show,” Tony said, entering the room and heading for another armchair. “Dana Scully was my lesbian awakening.” He fist-bumped Natasha on his way past her.

“I’m lodging a protest,” Bucky complained. “There are no lesbians in this room.”

“Well, Pepper should be up later,” Tony replied, tossing himself into a chair. “Turn the show on; I wanna see aliens.”

~*~

When she woke up, Darcy found herself in the pitch dark, her back against what felt like a wall, her head pounding. A soft, unidentifiable hum filled the air. She blinked into the darkness. “Hello?” she said, her words a little slurred. “Is anyone here?”

“Darcy, thank God,” Jane’s voice came out of the darkness just beside her, also a little slurry. “I’ve been hoping you were there.”

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Darcy said. She reached out, her hand bumping Jane’s shoulder just before her arm reached its full extension. “Where the hell are we?”

“I have no idea,” Jane said. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Getting in the car to go to the airport for the flight home,” Darcy said after a moment’s thought. “After that… nothing.”

“There was some kind of gas,” Jane told her. “It came out of the air conditioner vent.”

Darcy groaned. “Great. No wonder my head feels like I’ve got an entire drumline inside of it.” She sighed, leaning her head back against the wall behind her. “When we get home, I’m putting a new chapter in the Avengers Adjacent handbook. It’s going to be titled _So You’ve Been Kidnapped: Now What?_”

Jane laughed softly. “And the whole chapter is just going to be something like ‘Hope for rescue because there’s not much you can do to help yourself’?”

“Basically.” Darcy took a deep breath. “At least it’s not damp in here; we’re not in a dungeon.”

“Rules out Von Doom,” Jane agreed. “So what do you think? Are we being held for ransom or do they want to know something about my work?”

“Can’t it be both?” Darcy pointed out reasonably.

“Didn’t think of that,” Jane admitted.

Darcy nodded into the darkness. “Yeah, that’s my bet. They want to know what we were doing in Chile, and then they’re going to hold us for ransom.”

Jane hummed thoughtfully. “AIM or Hammer?”

“Oh, good question.” Darcy considered. “My money’s on AIM.”

“All right, I’ll take Hammer,” Jane replied. “Winner buys coffee for a week.”

“Deal.” Darcy chuckled. “Wonder how long we’ll be in here before they show up with the threats.”

Jane shrugged. “If we’re only being held for ransom, we’ll just sit here like mushrooms. If they want information, though, it’ll probably be soon.”

“If they want information, they’re going to be out of luck,” Darcy said sourly. “I’ve _never_ been more disappointed in one of your trips.”

“Well, I mean, let’s be real; after Thor, _any _of our trips would be a letdown.”

“Point,” Darcy agreed. “You haven’t hit a single person with the Pinz since then and I frankly am bored with the lack of trips to the hospital.”

“And when’s the last time you had a chance to tase anyone?” Jane asked. “It’s been years.”

Darcy sighed dramatically. “My taser is wasting away from the lack of use.”

They were silent for a moment. Then Jane said, “I hope they don’t forget to feed and water us. I’m kind of thirsty.”

“Oh, shut up,” Darcy groaned. “Talking about it just makes it worse.”

“I wonder what that humming, rushing noise is,” Jane began, but she fell silent at the sound of footsteps in the hall. A moment later, there was a click, and a door swung open, flooding the dark space with bright light. Both women startled back, covering their eyes, and a woman’s voice chuckled. “Sorry about that,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “Can’t be helped.”

“What do you want?” Jane asked shortly, removing her hands and squinting at the light. The woman standing there was visible only as a shadow, backlit as she was, but Jane did her best to glare anyway.

“The usual,” the woman replied. “Fame, fortune, the entire world cowering at my impeccably-shod feet. You know.”

Jane sighed softly. “What do you want _from me_?” she demanded.

“The usual,” the woman said again. “The secrets to the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, and the satisfaction of the expressions on the Avengers’ faces when they see you on a television screen with your eyes gouged out.” The woman stepped back, then gestured to someone in the hall. “Bring the spare,” she said, then turned and walked away.

A man entered the room then, large and overly-muscled in a douchebag-gym-rat sort of way. He reached down and grabbed Darcy by the arm. She struggled, trying to get out of his grip, and he drew back an arm, backhanding her with enough force that she saw stars and went limp. He firmed up his grip on her arm and dragged her from the room. Jane scrambled toward the door, shouting Darcy’s name, but the door was slammed shut before she could get there. The lock was thrown from the outside, and Jane was in the darkness again, this time totally alone.

~*~

“What do you mean, they missed their flight?” Bucky demanded of Tony across the table of the conference room where the Avengers had all assembled. “They were flying in your jet; it should have waited for them.”

“It did,” Tony replied. “For thirty minutes, and then the pilot called the hotel and the hotel said they’d checked out, and then the pilot called the car company and the car company said they showed up to the hotel to pick them up but they weren’t there. So then the pilot called me.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “So they’ve been missing for how long?”

“They checked out of the hotel two hours ago,” Tony answered him. “The pilot called me fifteen minutes ago.”

“So a fake car picked them up two hours ago,” Clint said. “Hell, they could be anywhere right now. Still in Chile or on a flight to anywhere in the world.”

“My money’s on a flight,” Tony said, “so I have JARVIS checking every plane that left any airport within range in the last two hours.”

“Ransom or information?” Natasha asked.

Tony shook his head. “No idea. Could be either or both. We won’t know until we hear from whoever has them.”

“We need Thor,” Bucky said.

“Thor would be losing his mind right now,” Bruce commented.

“Thor has a friend who can see anybody anywhere in the galaxy,” Bucky pointed out. “We’d have them back in under a day.”

Bruce inclined his head, acknowledging the point.

“Well, we don’t have Thor or his magic friend, so we’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way,” Tony said. He tapped at the smart glass tabletop and a holographic screen popped up in the air. “JARVIS, show us what we’ve got, pal.”

“We have – ” JARVIS actually paused for a full second. “Sir, there is an incoming video call from Ms. Lewis’s telephone.”

“Track it,” Tony said instantly. “And put the call on the screen.”

The hologram blipped, and Darcy appeared on the screen. She looked no worse for wear, and gave a wan smile to the camera. “Hey, guys.”

“Darce,” Bucky breathed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Darcy replied. “So’s Jane.”

“For now,” a woman’s voice said from offscreen, and Darcy gave a half-shrug in acknowledgement.

Steve leaned forward and got straight to the point. “Who has you and what do they want?”

“She says she goes by Nightshade,” Darcy replied. “She wants all Jane’s research on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and ten million dollars wired to an account in the Caymans.”

“And who does Nightshade work for?” Bruce wanted to know. “AIM?”

There was a throaty laugh from offscreen. “AIM wishes I’d come work for them,” the woman – presumably Nightshade – said. “You’ve probably heard of my employer, though. The name is MODOK.” There was a moment’s pause – long enough for the Avengers to share a glance with one another – before she added, “Now get all that information together for me like good boys, and maybe I’ll let you have your little scientists back.” The screen went dark.

“JARVIS, what do you have?” Tony demanded.

“The main signal was blocked,” JARVIS replied, “but I was able to access the emergency beacon. It pinged a satellite over the Pacific Ocean and appears to be heading west.” He gave a set of coordinates, popping up a map with a blinking beacon to show the location of the beacon in question.

“Scramble a drone from Malibu,” Tony said. “One of the stealth models. Get it out there.”

“Drone 462 is on its way, sir,” JARVIS replied. Another blinking light came up on the map to show the location of the drone.

“My drones move faster than most commercially available jets,” Tony told them. “We should catch up with them pretty soon.”

Bucky nodded. “Good.”

“All right,” Steve said. “Everybody suit up and let’s scramble the Quinjet.”

Everyone began to rise except Bruce, who looked over at Steve. “What about me?”

Steve’s mouth twisted sympathetically. “I know you hate having to Hulk out,” he said, “but I’d rather have you and not need you than need you and not have you.”

Bruce nodded. “Fair enough.” He rose, following everyone else out of the room.

Half an hour later, the Avengers were climbing into the Quinjet.

The door slid shut behind Natasha as Clint slid into the pilot’s seat, and Bucky took the co-pilot’s seat while the others arranged themselves in the comfortably-appointed central area. “How long before we catch up to them?” Bucky asked quietly.

Clint shook his head as he went through his pre-flight checks. “Don’t know,” he admitted. “Depends on where and whether they stop.”

Bucky nodded. “We’re faster than them, right?”

“Probably,” Clint replied. “Unless MODOK has more advanced engine tech than a Quinjet. And if they did, I’m sure we’d have heard about it, because they’d be selling it.”

“There’s no engine faster than the engine in this jet,” Tony bragged. “I built this engine from the ground up.”

“So when it blows up and we all die, we can blame you,” Natasha said dryly. “Sit down and monitor that drone; if they land on some uncharted island somewhere, I want to know it.”

“That’s probably exactly what’s going to happen,” Bruce commented.

And, as it turned out, Bruce was exactly right.

~*~

About an hour after the Quinjet passed Hawai’i, JARVIS reported that the drone had caught up to the MODOK aircraft on which Darcy and Jane were being held. Bucky left the co-pilot seat to go to the back of the plane and check on Steve, who had been brooding and silent since they left New York. “Hey,” he said, dropping down to sit next to Steve, and relayed the news. Then he asked, “You okay?”

“No,” Steve admitted. Then he gave a humorless half-laugh. “Part of me is just… we’re backwards, aren’t we? Isn’t it supposed to be the big, strong Alpha coming to the rescue of the helpless Omega?”

“She ain’t helpless,” Bucky pointed out, “but I get where you’re coming from. Just means we get to flip the script, that’s all. Big, strong Beta and Omega swooping in to rescue the Alpha. It’ll be great. Bet you anything she thinks it’s funny.”

“She thinks everything’s funny,” Steve pointed out, a wry twist to his lips. “That’s half the reason we like her so much.”

“True,” Bucky acknowledged. Then he reached up and clasped Steve’s shoulder. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” he murmured. “We’re gonna get them back, and we’re gonna get them home, and we’re gonna tell her how we feel and then she’s gonna be our Alpha. Yeah?”

Steve huffed softly. “Yeah,” he agreed. “And then after we spend a week or so nested up, we’re taking her out to a burlesque club. Did I tell you Nat told me where a good one is?”

“You did not,” Bucky replied. “But that’s good. She won’t steer us wrong; she’s way too weirdly invested in us all getting together.”

“We have good friends,” Steve murmured. “They care about us a lot.”

“Yeah, they do.” Bucky shook Steve’s shoulder gently. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“I’m taking your word for it,” Steve replied. He started to say something else, but was interrupted by an announcement from JARVIS advising them that the drone indicated that the MODOK aircraft was coming in for a landing.

“What the hell?” Tony was saying as Steve and Bucky came forward to join the team. “_Where?_” He pointed at the map on the wall screen. “There’s nothing there!”

“Apparently there’s something,” Bruce said simply, “or they wouldn’t be landing on it.”

“How long before we’re there?” Steve asked.

“Three hours,” Tony replied. “Let’s just hope it’s an actual private island and not an aircraft carrier or something.”

“Do you have to jinx everything?” Clint complained.

~*~

When the plane landed, Jane and Darcy were frog-marched off by a couple of standard-issue jack-booted thugs, guided at gunpoint through a small compound, and pushed none-too-gently into a lab that was not so different from the one in Stark Tower. “Welcome to your new home,” Nightshade told them from the doorway. “Bathroom’s through that door; bedroom’s through that other door. Get used to the place, because you won’t be leaving.”

Darcy bit down on her instinctive desire to laugh; this woman and her organization might think they could outsmart Tony Stark on a good day, but today was not that day. She knew good and well that JARVIS would have accessed her emergency beacon the moment he made contact with her phone; the only thing left to take bets on would be _how long _it would take for the Avengers to come riding in, guns metaphorically blazing.

“Okay,” Jane said, looking around. “I can work here. But I’ll need access to my research.”

“You can start over,” Nightshade replied. “It shouldn’t take you long to get back up to speed.”

At that, Darcy did laugh, tossing herself into a desk chair. “Lady,” she said, “we’ve been working on that research for eight years, and part of the research included literally _going to Asgard. _You think that can just be redone? What’s your timeline, twenty years?”

“You have a week,” Nightshade replied, glaring.

Jane sighed heavily. “Fine, but I’m going to need the Internet. I assume you have some kind of a connection out here?”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Nightshade asked.

“I’m starting to wonder,” Darcy said under her breath.

“Get to work,” Nightshade snapped. She stepped back and the door slid shut, latching with a heavy thunk.

Jane and Darcy looked at each other for a long moment before Jane shrugged. “Might as well make the best use of our time,” she said. “Let’s see what they’ve already got.”

A lot, as it turned out. Darcy looked up at Jane a half hour later and said “There’s a mole in the Tower.”

“No question about it,” Jane replied. “Somebody _in our lab._”

“We’ll figure out who it is,” Darcy said. “And I will bite them.”

“I approve of this line of thought,” Jane agreed.

An hour or so later, one of MODOK’s thugs brought Jane and Darcy their luggage. Everything had been gone through with a fine-toothed comb, but it was nice to have their things and be able to shower in the small bathroom and put on clean clothing. They both felt a little more human, even though they were both disgruntled about the fact that their things had been gone through.

“Can’t expect them to have left us our electronics, I guess,” Darcy said philosophically.

Jane sighed. “I’m just thankful for Spotify; I don’t have to listen to you complain that they stole your iPod any more.”

“Hey, that was a big deal back then,” Darcy defended herself. “An iPod in 2011 was like three hundred bucks, and I was a broke undergrad. It wasn’t like I just had three hundred bucks lying around.”

“So you said,” Jane agreed. “Many times.”

They had just gone back to work when an alarm sounded; out in the hallway, lights began to flash. A group of thugs, several strong by the sound of their stamping feet, came running past the lab’s locked door.

Jane and Darcy looked at one another. “Well,” Jane said, “I guess we should pack up.”

“That was really fast,” Darcy commented. “I totally expected us to be here for a few days at least.”

“With Captain America and the Winter Soldier looking for you?” Jane pointed out. “I’m surprised we’re still here.”

“Looking for _us,_” Darcy corrected.

“Looking for _you,_” Jane repeated. “_I’m_ not their Alpha.”

“Neither am I,” Darcy retorted.

Jane rolled her eyes. “_Yet._” Then she waved a hand at Darcy. “Rather than arguing, let’s get packed. Hopefully we’ll be able to bring our luggage back with us.”

“We’d better,” Darcy said darkly. “My favorite pants are in this bag.”

~*~

The rescue was, after everything, a serious letdown.

Evidently, Nightshade had forgotten – or not known – that the Avengers were both equipped for and willing to use lethal force. She came striding out of the compound’s main building to meet them, surrounded by armed thugs, and her expression of surprise when every single thug was dropped where they stood would have been comical if the whole situation hadn’t been so serious.

“But you’re the Avengers!” she blurted. “You don’t kill people!”

“Yeah, that’s Batman,” Clint replied, even as Bucky leveled his rifle at her. “Where are the hostages?”

~*~

Somewhere over Hawai’i, Jane gave Steve’s shoulder a gentle shove. “Omega to Omega,” she said softly, “stop trying to pretend you’re hovering over both of us equally. Go be with your Alpha.”

Steve chewed his lip. “But she’s not – ”

“But she _will be._” Jane grinned. “As soon as the two of you step up and admit you want her. She’s not going to do it – she’s afraid of getting between you.”

Steve opened his mouth, then paused. Jane tried to decide if he was going to protest again or make a “getting between you” joke, but he did neither. Instead, he closed his mouth again and gave her a brisk nod. “All right,” he said. “I trust you not to steer me wrong on this.”

“I wouldn’t,” Jane promised him. “Go get her.”

Steve nodded again, stood up, and grabbed Bucky by the sleeve, dragging him toward the loveseat where Darcy was currently seated, wrapped up in a blanket and holding a bottle of water. He gave Bucky a gentle shove onto the loveseat, then scooped Darcy up and turned, sitting down and settling her in his lap.

There was a moment of silence before Darcy said, “You know, I think that was supposed to be _my _move.”

“You’re too little to pick me up,” Steve replied simply. “Besides, it’s not like this would be a normal relationship anyway, right? Not with me and Buck.”

“Speak for yourself,” Bucky replied, but he was grinning.

Darcy glanced across the room at everyone else; all the Avengers and Jane were all carefully and ostentatiously occupied with other things. Darcy rolled her eyes, then leaned into Steve’s torso, reaching out with her free hand for Bucky. He took her hand, his grin modulating into a soft smile. “What do you think, Doll?” he asked. “Wanna be our Alpha? For good, and all?”

“Well,” she said, smiling back. “Since it’s for good and all.”


End file.
